HOLLYWOOD IN CRISIS

Posted at 7:03 p.m. ET

There is a looming crisis in Hollywood, with potentially devastating psychological effects. We've written a bit about it before here, and I wanted to bring you up to date.

The crisis involves The One, and the outside chance that he could lose.  Hollywood fears the trauma that would accompany that result.  Psychiatrists are apparently running 24-hour walk-in offices out of the top floors of Beverly Hills mansions.

As usual, it's an English-speaking foreign journalist, this time writing for Australia's Sidney Morning Herald, who nails the story.  Be prepared for sadness:

A HIDEOUS new affliction is creeping through the ranks of America's creative community.

The further Barack Obama edges ahead of John McCain in the million and one polls that are coming out the more pernicious the nagging fear becomes.

What if he loses?

Barely a left-wing pundit, barely an Oscar-nominated softie can sleep a wink these days for fear of the race riots and international humiliation that will ensue should "The One" be defeated on Tuesday.

No intimidation there. Of course not.  No American would actually vote based on a fear of race riots and international humiliation.  No, never.  Hmm.

The comedian Chris Rock is at least capable of joking about it. "If Obama loses?" he replied to a question from talk show host Bill Maher. "Well, that Wednesday after election day, anybody … any activity in your life that involves black people, it's not going to get done. If you're at the airport? No one's going to get your bags."

Yeah, hilarious.  Vote our way, or else.

Crack teams of chiropractors are at the ready, and Nissen huts full of qualified shrinks and aromatherapists line Rodeo Drive to soothe the tortured brigades of the psychologically wounded should "The One" be robbed of victory.

Actress Susan Sarandon has already issued a veiled threat to the public.

"It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people," she told Britain's Telegraph newspaper with a touch of implied menace in June this year. "If they prove me wrong, I'll be checking out a move to Italy. Maybe Canada, I don't know. We're at an abyss …"

Go already.  Please.  But Canada should be forewarned about a migration north of the emotionally unstable.

Barbra Streisand vowed to emigrate to Canada in 2000 if George Bush were ever elected President, an undertaking she refreshed four years later at the prospect of his re-election.

But she was still sufficiently resident in California on September 16 this year to host a $US2500 ($3800) a head fund-raiser for Obama at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Actually, she had trouble scheduling a moving van.  That's all it was.

The actor Alec Baldwin and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder made similar threats in 2000, as did Robert Redford in 2004, but none has since enriched the Canadian cultural scene.

In fact, Canadian immigration records show that arrivals from the United States actually slowed in the six months after George Bush's re-election in 2004.

That's because most Americans are sane and loyal, and live in the real world.  I've worked in Hollywood.  Real it ain't.

November 2, 2008.